The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Ohio State’s QB situation, Chip Kelly wants Major Change & Nick Saban pulls a Power Move on Michigan

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

FOX Sports’ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt discusses the latest transfer portal moves including QB Kyle McCord’s move to Syracuse and what it means for Ohio State’s QB situation for next season. He discusses why the sport failed Texas QB Maalik Murphy by putting him into a terrible position of having to enter the Transfer Portal before the Longhorns play in the College Football Playoff. Following a court ruling over NCAA transfer rules, Klatt discusses the potential issues that could be coming in the future if players are allowed to freely transfer as many times as they like without repercussions. Klatt also reacts to Chip Kelly’s proposal for a radical overhaul of the sport. He concludes the show by giving his thoughts on Nick Saban’s decision to hire a former Michigan assistant coach just weeks before Alabama is set to face the Wolverines in the Rose Bowl. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today on the Joel Clatt show, we've got Portal News. Chip Kelly was dropping dimes all over everybody, and we talk about all of it right now. College football has never been better. Interest has never been higher. Believe that we are at the dawn of the golden age of college football. It was an epic day of college football. It was just one of those days where you fall in love with the sport all over again. What's up, everybody?

Welcome to the Joel Clatt show. I'm Joel Clatt. And this show is presented by Hampton by Hilton. We've got a lot to get into here. And first of all, I hope you're enjoying December. I wish that we would just like the FCS, dive right into the playoffs, but we don't. More on that in a little bit. Hey, remember, if you're new to the program and you haven't done it yet, just go ahead and go

follow and subscribe to the pod wherever you listen to your podcast. And do so on the YouTube channel as well. Subscribe, click it, leave a comment, like it, review it, all of the different things. And you can follow us wherever you like to social media. TikTok, we're there. You're on Instagram. We're there. You're on, I don't know, X. Aha. See what I did there? We're also there at Joel Clatt Show on social media and we've got all of our content out there. So this edition of the show is going to be a lot about the portal because let's face it, there's just hasn't been a lot going on outside of all the talk about the

sport generally, the transfer portal, these players, a little bit of high school recruiting news getting dropped here and there with some of these uncommitted players, potentially committing, so on and so forth. So that's kind of what the season has devolved into here in the middle of December, which it always does, which is a problem and maybe we've got a fix for you today. So let's jump into the latest, if you will, when it comes to the portal. And I think that the biggest news out of the portal was Kyle McCord, settling on a place and a location to go and transfer.

Kyle McCord, of course, the five-star quarterback to play at Ohio State. did a great job for Ohio State for the most part, in particular that win against Notre Dame, fell short. Let's face it, for Buckeye standards. They want to go beat Michigan. You want to win the Big Ten playing the playoff and win the national championship. And that's not going to happen. So they lose to the number one team in the country by six on the road. And he, you know, let's face it with that fan base was the target of a lot of criticism.

And so because of a lot of factors, and I don't know any of them was the absolute driving force. But if you talk with people around the program, you know, there was an idea of like potentially like NIL issues and and guaranteed starting spot issues and so on and so forth. So he decided to go to the transfer portal. I should say he was linked to Nebraska, took a visit there, and it looked like that was a foregone conclusion, and then all of a sudden it wasn't, and now he commits to Syracuse. So he's going to go to Syracuse.

Bit interesting, let's face it. You know, Syracuse, I don't think, was on a lot of people's bingo card, in particular because I just don't know if Syracuse is going to be a playoff caliber team, and you would think that McCord would go from Ohio State and try to land at another team that he could elevate into kind of playoff caliber. So we'll see, we'll see, though, because there's a lot of momentum, right?

And by the way, I do know a few people from Cuse, if you will. And so those texts were flying in. You know, Mikey from Syracuse, he definitely texted me. My nephew loves Syracuse because when he was a kid, he loved the color orange. And then he decided that, like, his favorite was Syracuse. And so my nephew, Josh, loves Syracuse, got a text from him. Another one of my buddies, he went to Syracuse. They're all excited, as they should be.

I think that this is an upgrade for Syracuse. There's no doubt. So McCord goes there and it begs the question, what does this mean for Ohio State? You know, Ohio State, in a lot of ways, people were expecting them to jump in and really target and go after Cam Ward. I was even expecting it to some degree. maybe even Malik Murphy, and we'll get to Malik Murphy in a little bit, the transfer from Texas, maybe Will Howard from Kansas State. And yet they didn't really.

So it leads you to believe that Ohio State is at least confident enough in the quarterbacks that they're going to have in for spring to allow those guys to battle it out. So you've got Lincoln Kleinholds, the freshman, you've got Devin Brown, who's going to play in their bowl game. And then you've got Aaron Nolan, who's committed. in them as a high school player. And you can assume, I guess, that those three will be competing for the starting job for Ohio State. I don't think that that's a for sure. Now, that might be the case, but I don't think that's a for sure. Because remember, you're going to have another round of transfer portal when guys lose jobs in spring football.

Remember, that's when Joe Burrow ended up transferring away from Ohio State was after spring ball, loses the quarterback competition. It was a great competition, finds a spot at LSU. So I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that that's the case for the Buckeyes, but at least for now it looks like Ohio State and Ryan Day, okay, comfortable with, confident in their setup for the spring and even maybe next fall with those three. Devin Brown again, who will start the bowl game, Lincoln Kleinholz, who was there as a freshman there in Columbus,

and then Aaron Nolan, who's going to, I would presume, sign in a couple of days as a high school player. So that's going on in the process. portal. Colorado continued to do really well in the portal. They are, at least as of right now, right there, kind of one, two in terms of portal rankings. And then the team that's making a huge push in the transfer portal and done an excellent job is the lane train. Ole Miss. How about Ole Miss? Ole Miss is doing a wonderful job. They have three of the top 15 players right now out of the portal committed. Looks like they're the favorite for the number one overall player in the

portal. That's Walter Nolan. And Lane, you know, could be the portal king as we're going through this offseason. They've done an outstanding job with their collective at Ole Miss. I know really well the people involved with their collective. They do an outstanding job with their collective. Good budget, good makeup, good model. And they do an outstanding job. So they have the resources to go out and target and pull some of these resources in, and they're doing that. And Lane is obviously an effective recruiter. So Ole Miss doing outstanding things in the portal. And I'll be really surprised if they don't end up as being the number one portal class in the country when it's all said and done.

More news out of the portal. And this one is a little bit more late breaking, at least in terms of when we're recording this show here. and this is late Sunday night for those of you out there. Malachi Nelson, the young quarterback for USC, is expected to enter the transfer portal after just one year at USC. He was a five-star recruit. And it would, I think at least, beg the question, does he know something about USC's intentions in the transfer portal? We know that Will Howard visited over the weekend, the Kansas State quarterback. He won the Big 12 a couple of years ago as a starting quarterback when he came in for, an injured Adrian Martinez and did an outstanding job. He did a pretty good job for Kansas State this

last year. He's in the portal. He visited USC. Could it be a Will Howard to USC news that is making Malachi, you know, potentially move on? And where does he land? That's a fascinating one. And so this is ongoing here. And then you got the news, and I'm going to sit with this one a little bit, Malik Murphy, the backup quarterback, who started a few games for Texas this year, ends up in the transfer portal. And here it is, and this is what was inevitable at some point, because of the nature of what we're trying to do in college football in this disastrous calendar is you have a backup quarterback for a college football playoff team that is in the transfer portal and essentially has to like bail. and it's not his fault. It's because the system is built so backwards that the calendar ends up like this.

I tweeted this out, or I don't know, I sent out a tweet. And I said, I feel terrible for Malik Murphy. There's no way that he wants to do this prior to the college football playoff, but the calendar in college football is so atrocious and the ridiculous timing of the transfer portal forced his hand, which is true, which is true.

because remember, it is a bit of a game of musical chairs. It is. There's only a certain number of really quality locations where you would want to go as a quarterback. And so here's a talented guy. Sees the handwriting on the wall with Arch Manning behind him. Quinn yours probably maybe good chance of him staying in Texas after this year. And so Malik Murphy is. is thinking to himself, well, I mean, I want to stay.

And yet I'm going to have to go and find my spot. And because of the limited window and how the window works. And there's also, by the way, a dead period coming up over the holidays where he can't go and visit. So it's like his hands were tied. And in so many ways because of this ridiculous blender that we put ourselves in in college football. He even said, you know, he said to ESPN, I hate it, I hate it. I'm super invested in this team, everything that we've done along the way and all the work we've put in together.

It's hard to walk away, especially at this point in the season. Of course it is. And it's not his fault. And again, like I said, and I will continue to say this, his hand is being forced by what is a totally broken calendar. And let's talk about that calendar for a quick moment. So in this season, let's talk specific dates. Let's just kind of outline what we've got going on.

So on December 2nd, we play conference championship games. And we play those conference championship games. And two days later, the transfer portal opens. And there is a flood of names. What was it? I think this year it was like a thousand names right away, just like, boom. It's just poured into the transfer portal. So that opens.

And by the way, on December 20, 20th, we're going to have this early signing day for high school recruits. Because remember, apparently the old February signing day just wasn't working for everybody. And we wanted to make sure that players could sign and get into school so that they could graduate high school early and get in and play and participate in spring ball and that it would be all easier for the coaches. And then they wouldn't have to retain their recruits all the way into February. And if they had a hard commitment, then that guy could sign,

but we'll still have a signing day in February. Remember when that was a problem? Do you remember? Do you remember when that was top of mind for everybody? So what did we do? We put a band-aid. Put a band-aid over it because that's what we do in college football, is that we run around to issues and we try to like patch them up. And so here's this early signing day that popped up a few years ago as a little patchwork fix over something that was a presumed problem. But now the unintended consequences are that you've got the portal open. You've got early signing day on the 20th. And oh, by the way, you've got semi-final games on January 1st. So what is he supposed to do? Again, this is a game of musical chairs. And this is why I feel terrible from Malik Murphy.

This 30-day winter transfer period runs from the second. Then the recruiting dead period starts around December 18th this week. And because of that dead period, it's not really a full 30 days. So Murphy's got to jump into the portal so that he can. take visits and he can communicate with coaching staffs and figure out their plans so that he can make an informed decision about his future, even though if left to his own accord, he'd probably just want to stay with his team and compete in the college football playoff. I mean, can you imagine, like, what happens if Quinn Ewers goes down?

He was the backup. He's supposed to play. Do we, do none of us remember just a few years ago when Tua came off the bench? Now, it wasn't an injury in that case, but it was an ineffective Jalen Hur. in the first half of a national championship game that led to it to play. What if that was in the cards for Malik Murphy? And now that's stripped from him because we can't figure out the calendar. I mean, come on.

Come on. What are we doing right now? Let's just call it what it is. It's asinine. The way that we go about business in FBS college football. It's crazy. Can you imagine? Can you imagine?

Let me just paint a scenario for you. Can you imagine? Let's say the NFL, right? You play your 17th game. Boom. We've got the playoffs. Here's the standings. Everybody's hyped.

Right? In a lot of ways, like you've got draft standing set. You've got the playoffs set. You've got matchups set. And the sport is like as hot as it is all year, right? And you just like, man, there's so much interest. By the way, in a program like this, our highest numbers happen when right at the end of the regular season because like the interest is there. You build to this point.

It's a crescendo, right? It's the end of the regular season. You've got a playoff. Can you imagine if the NFL just was like, you know what? We're going to take a month off. we're going to take a month off. And hey, in that month, before we start the playoffs, let's have the amateur draft.

Let's have the draft, the NFL draft. Call it the amateur draft like it's baseball. It's not the amateur draft. Let's have the NFL draft. And you know what? Let's have free agency. And you know what? Let's like negotiate the CBA.

You know, because, you know, it'll be fine. Can you imagine? that. Of course you can't. Why? Because that would be stupid. And yet, here we are in college football, where we build through what is the best and most robust regular season in all of sports. We end it with rivalry games that are historic and in a lot of ways more historic, more passionate, more tribal in a lot of ways than even the rivalries in the National Football League. He had 19 million viewers from Michigan, Ohio State. The Iron Bowl is epic.

We get that and we take a month off and have free agency and high school signing period. I mean, it is just mind-blowing how dumb that really is. I started thinking to myself. I started thinking to myself. Because I, you and I both know, I love this sport. I love it. I love most things. I used to say everything, but I love almost everything about this sport. And full disclosure, I've never been much of a soccer fan. Okay. Like it's just, it's not a sport that I participated in as a kid. It's not a sport that I got in too much. Quite frankly, I was, I've been, I'm 41 years old. And I'm, I've been constantly turned off by the sport because I've been told that it's going to be the most popular sport in our country ever since I was 10. And guess what? It ain't. Right? Like, that's just what it is.

Then, generally speaking, soccer fans get mad at you just for saying things like, you know, I'm just not really into soccer. And they're like, you know what I'm talking about. Right. And yet, one of my dearest friends and the guy that I am almost completely reliant on to do my job well, Steve, right here, part of the program, is a huge soccer fan, played soccer at Gonzaga University, really good player. And so Steve and I have had conversations about the sport, about soccer. And I remember early on when we first started working together. And I had this like, you know, very American, very, you know, a big dumb jock type of mindset, you know, football player, American sports, like soccer, whatever, soccer. And he started, you know, trying to teach me.

And then part of my mindset was like, I don't understand it. What league is what? So wait, where do they compete? And wait, what's the Champions League? but but then they isn't that the same team that's playing in wait is that not the same league and I was like this is weird

you know and then they have like a transfer season where players can you know that they have a transfer and I was like man this is too hard to follow and it's like okay now imagine someone just walks in from Rome or London or wherever right Barcelona

and they've never really been a football fan football. And you're like, hey, man, college football is the best. You've got to get into college football. And they're like, okay, you know, they're like, perfect. Explain it to me. And that's, that's exactly when it's like, oh. So there's 10 conferences, but five of them are considered the power conferences. And the real powerful ones are called the Big Ten and the SEC. And then they say like, okay, well, who are the 10 schools in the Big Ten? And you're like, no, there's 16 schools and about to be 18 school. And they're like, wait, there's how many schools in the Big Ten? You're like,

yeah, but don't worry about it. But then there's another conference called the Big 12. And they had 10 schools, but now they've got 14 this year, but then they're going to 16. And they're like, wait, but it's still called the Big 12. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And their power conference. Okay, so like, when do they play each other? Well, they kind of play each other in the non-conference. Like, how do they play each other?

Is it based on when they finish? Well, no, it's like, you know, their athletic directors just like agree 10 years prior to play. And they're like, oh, so if the win their league, does that automatically get them? Well, no, it doesn't automatically because there's this, there's this, you know, tribunal, if you will, and it's committee. And they decide which four teams get to. And then you stop yourself and you're like, oh my gosh. Oh, my gosh.

Okay, so this is how I get to arrive at this point is the calendar. The calendar. What are we doing? Can you imagine the NFL all of a sudden just taking a month off right after their regular season. It's like not capitalizing on all the hype, not capitalizing on all the positive ratings, not capitalizing at all. and they just took a month off and they're like,

let's have the draft and free agency at the same time. It will be awesome. No, it's not awesome because the teams couldn't make quality decisions based on who are they going to draft, who are they going to sign. And by the way, even in that sense, it would have more structure than what we have. Because what we have, it's like there is no order to high school recruiting. You can just sign whoever you want.

And there's no like transfer, you know, it doesn't matter. We've got guys that can transfer. after their first year or second year or third year? Are you a graduate? Is this the second time you're transferring? Do you have a COVID year of eligibility? It's not like you just know the players that will be free agents. So even if they did what I'm proposing and took a month off and had free agency and had the NFL

draft, it would still have more order than what we try to do in college football. And this is crazy. So you go back to, let's go back to where I started. Malik Murphy having to transfer. and yet he's a backup quarterback for a team that's about to try to play a playoff game. Come on, folks, like we've got to fix this. We've got to fix this. There's no reason that we need to start taking the month off.

All right, this is not the old bowl game. This is not the old bowl game. Let's move the playoff closer to the regular season. Let's capitalize on when our sport is the most popular, which is Thanksgiving and the week after. That's when the most people in our country are participating. in and care about college football. So let's play our most important games right at that moment.

Let's jam the college football playoff closer to the regular season. The only week that I am willing to say, okay, let's take a week and let's have a breath, is right after the second, in this case, in this season, allow Army and Navy to play their game on a Saturday and then start the playoffs. That's the only reason I'd be willing to stop that one week. And then let's go. Let's go. And by the way, the transfer portal should not open up until at least January 1st, at least January 1st.

And someone say like, well, how are they going to make decisions in order to be enrolled in school? And what are we going to do about finals? We can't do finals. Okay. But the FCS schools play right through finals. and every other sport in intercollegiate athletics play right through finals, whether it's the winter semester or whether it's the spring semester, fall semester or spring semester.

And nobody bats an eye. But apparently in major college football, it's just like, you know what, bridge too far. We can't have a playoff game on finals week. I think that we probably could. I know that I'm going in a lot of different directions here, but it's because you guys understand the calendar has got to fix, got to be fixed. We need to finish the season and then get into player acquisition.

It's better for everybody at that point. Then if you are going to get into the transfer portal, you don't have to make decisions like Malik Murphy did. Then you can have a transfer portal that is done. And then you can have high school signing day in its traditional position. I don't think that there's any reason why that can't be the case. You know, these were Band-Aid fixes anyways of the way that we're doing things, and I think that they're backwards.

We cannot continue to have this blender. Again, the analogy. Can you imagine if the National Football League took a month off before their playoffs started to have the draft and free agency all at the same time? Of course you wouldn't, because that would. be crazy. Hey, it's my favorite time of year, which is fix college football time of year. And we're about to enter playoff season. And as you know, I take it seriously. So when I'm traveling on the road, by the way, and this is for when I'm traveling personally with my family or business.

And I'm out covering college football to watch my favorite teams, I can't risk calling the wrong play with where I stay. So wherever I go, I know that I can count on Hampton by Hilton. I can depend on their comfortable rooms. My family can depend on their comfortable rooms. I can count on their friendly service. And their breakfast is a game changer. It's free. It's hot and it's right downstairs. I can get my cup of coffee even before the kids get up, before I need to, you know, go to a meeting, go to production meeting. I can get my breakfast. I can get my day going at Hampton by Hilton. It's a game changer. So whether you're cheering on your team from the stands or never leaving the tailgate, Hampton by Hilton will always give you that win. Okay. So,

So there was also some more news in regards to the transfer process. If you've been following this sport, and again, you know, we like dive into offseason type mode. And before we ramp back up and try to rev back up for the playoffs, which is just dumb, but that's the way that we do it. You'll know that the NCAA agreed to stop making players sit out a season after their first transfer through the end of this academic year. It was a court case. And so that came out basically a TRO, a temporary restraining order. And the original order was signed on Wednesday.

And that blocked the NCAA from enforcing its multi-year transfer restriction. Okay. So listen, without getting into the weeds, here's the baseline of it. What this court case and ruling did is basically it took a really defined snapshot of the players that are currently in any sport. under a restriction based on transferring multiple times. And now it's made those athletes, student athletes, eligible right away. Okay. And there will be no penalty if they play right away in terms of restitution and things like.

So that's what the actual court case was and what the ruling was. There's not a ton to talk about in that regard, except for the conversation that it will spur in the future in the future. The conversation that it will spur in the future is this idea that the rule is going to be changed and we won't have a one-time transfer rule, but you can transfer whenever you want rule. That multiple transfers are totally legal and that you will never have to sit out and you will never lose eligibility regardless of how many times you transfer. Now, some restrictions, one only being that you would have to remain academically eligible. Now, okay. So that's what's going on.

And I wanted to just touch on that overarching sentiment a little bit before we dive into the rest of the program. Because this is being brought on by DAs in several different states. And I know that they're doing this from a legality standpoint. Can you make a legal argument that there should not be any restrictions on transfers? Yes, you can. You can probably make a legal argument that there are some antitrust issues with the NCAA trying to enforce that. Now, that being said, that doesn't mean that the rule isn't a good rule. And so this is what I would say is that in all likelihood, we are going to get to a point where you're going to have unlimited transfers. And that's not good for anybody involved.

I think that it's awful, obviously, for programs, for fan bases. I also think it's awful for players. and that's the most important piece. Because if these people think that they are actually benefiting the players, I think that they are mistaken. Now, again, you might just, if you're on that side, maybe it's just from a legality standpoint. But there is no positives to unlimited transfers for players.

There just isn't. There just isn't. Let me run down some of the issues that I think could arise from unlimited transfers. Okay. Number one, great decisions in your life are based off of really solid information. Details. Every quality decision that you make in your life is made off of quality information. You never make good decisions based on bad information. And if you're allowing everybody to move every year, then what that does is it minimum. and it limits the amount of quality information that is out there. So now whether I'm a high school athlete, a first year player, a second year player,

a third year player, a fourth year player, it doesn't matter what year I am. The decisions that I'm making are going to be made on incomplete and incorrect information because the rosters that I'm trying to make decisions based off of and the spots that I'm trying to make decisions based off of and the coaches that I'm trying to make decisions based off of are going to be constantly changing. And that amount of free mobility is actually not a positive because I'm not going to be able to make a great decision for me because I don't have all the information.

And there's no way that I can have all the information because of all that free mobility. And so that's an issue. That's an issue. If we want players and families to find the best fit for them, I think part of it will then deduce into, if that's the right word, chance. Because, again, they won't know what the roster is going to look like, in particular at their own position.

They won't know who they're going to be competing against. All of that stuff is important. It's important to make the best decision for you. So as a player, I would not want all of this mobility, number one, because of that. Number two, I think that it's a great hindrance to personal development, academic development, and physical development, all of it. So you can just put it into like a hindrance of development. If you talk about it from personal development, I would tell you that going through hard things is the only way you become better. As a young man, a lot of times you have to make mistakes.

You've got to be put into a position where you need to do something difficult. you need to be required to do something that you don't think you can do in order to grow. Heck, that's what lifting is, is you're basically doing things that your muscles can't do in order so that you can recruit more muscle fibers in order to do those things. Well, it's the same thing in personal growth. And if you've got free agency every single year, then there's too much of an out right away. So personal development gets hindered. It just does.

Your academic development, if you're trying to transfer that many times, you cannot tell me that people's ability to graduate won't be affected. Their ability to maintain credits, maintain momentum towards a degree. And this is still a sport in which very few kids are going to get rich enough just based on NIL or whatever revenue share happens in the future. Very few kids are going to have life-changing money that they'll be able to lean on for the rest of their life. And very few of these kids are going to go to the National Football League and even fewer are going to get to their second contract in the National Football League, which means the most important and valuable thing that they're actually going to get during these years is not their NIL dollars, but it is their degree. their ability to academically get something that they can lean on in the future to actually have an occupation or a career or build a career and have a career outside of the sport of football.

So that's the academic side. And then there's the physical side and you can throw in the player side. Okay. If I'm a coach and I know that a player can just leave whenever he wants or I can replace a player whenever I want every single year, well, then guess what? I'm not going to pour into development into that player if I don't think that it's going to work out. I can't tell you how many times you see a guy that'll come in, even as a highly recruited player. And for whatever reason, it's just like, boy, we didn't do our homework well enough.

This is not a fit. It's not working out. And what I see more and more now is that coaches are more willing to just move off of a player and say, you know what, we can replace them in the transfer portal. Well, that's not good for players, right? What you want is a coach to be personally and professionally invested in your success. You want them to have to develop you. Listen, I want a coach that's going to be like, hell or high water, my job, my entire being is going to be poured into you to develop you into something that you are not right now.

And if we have just free mobility every single year, we're not going to get that. Okay? So there is a hindrance of development. Like I said, personally, academically, and as a player. So I'm not going to be able to make great decisions because of incomplete information as a player. I don't feel like the development is going to be as strong with mobility every single year. And then there's the last thing, which is, how in the world does this prepare athletes for the real world? in the future. Because this is not reality and this is not how things work. None of us in the real

world can move on every single year. We can't. I'm technically an independent contractor. All right. That's how I'm categorized. And guess what? I'm still under contract. I can't just go do a game for Amazon. You know why? I'm under contract for a certain amount of time. Nobody can do that. Guys in the NFL. Justin Fields can't just be like, you know what? I'm going to go play for them. No, you can't do that.

Why? He's under contract. So in no way, shape, or form would allowing players to move every single year based on a whim, based on a feeling, based on NIL dollars, whatever it's based on. In no way, shape, or form, is that preparing them for the real world? Whether it's their occupation moving forward or even their occupation as a player in the National Football League. You don't have that mobility in the real world. You become an adult and guess what? There are consequences to decisions. There are hard things. Why?

There are restraints on your movement based on professional activity and contracts. So all of those things come into play. So what I would say about the proposal or the conversation or the idea that we could get to a place of unlimited transfers is, I sure hope it doesn't happen, but if it does, if it does, I would hope that it's so bad for both parties, players, and programs, that it would spur the change necessary to get on the same page, maybe collectively bargain, and move forward with guardrails that would be good for both parties. I think that that would be fair, and I think that that would hopefully be beneficial. Let's dive into the mailbag here.

If you want to write us an email about anything, ask me. I love reading these questions. I appreciate your comments. You can ask me about anything. You can send it to the Joel Clatshow Mailbag at gmail.com. Okay, so Tyler T. writes in. And this mailbag, by the way, is sponsored by Hampton by Hilton. Hilton for the stay.

And Tyler T. writes, and he says, any thoughts on Chip Kelly's idea on realignment? Well, if you haven't heard, this is what Chip Kelly had to say about college football and realignment. I think we need to have a conference commissioner. And I think football should be separate from the other sports. Just the fact that our school is leaving to go to the Big Ten in football, our softball team should be playing Arizona and softball. Our basketball team should be playing Arizona and basketball. but because football left. And they say, well, how do you do that?

Well, Notre Dame's independent in football, and they're in a conference and everything else. I think we should all be independent in football. And you can have a 64 team conference that's in the Power 5, and you can have a 64 team conference in the group of five. And we separate it, and we play each other. You can sponsor each one instead of calling a group of five and Power 5. You can call it Amazon, Nike, bid that out to things. You do a lot of different things. But I think if we still do the same thing and take all that money, and I would do this,

and I think this needs to be done. That money now needs to be shared with the student athletes, and there needs to be revenue sharing. The players should get paid, and you can get rid of NLI, and the school should be paying the players because the players are what the product is. Man, there was a lot of, there was a lot in there.

And good for Chip, and good for, because now he, he says what Jim Harbaugh has been saying, and he talks about revenue sharing with the players. There was a lot to unpack in there. So, Tyler, I appreciate your question. And I want to get in. into it. Here's what I really liked about Chip's answer. Number one is that football at its highest level has got to separate. And so that idea, when he said, when he said like,

football can be independent of the other sports, he was talking about it from a conference perspective. But I just think that like, if you actually just take it a step for like, this idea of football separating, I think is very important and needs to have. happen, needs to happen. And when you separate, what you can start to do is think about an overarching governing body or entity. He said commissioner, but again, it's more the idea. Okay, so he's bringing up specific ideas. And that specificity is obviously interesting and people love to hear it. And I think that's what generates clicks. But remember, it's obviously more about the ideas that he is floating. And and namely the separation of football is a really important one.

I do believe that football needs to separate from the other sports because the economics of football are so vastly different. And he's right. UCLA softball should be playing Arizona and Stanford and Cal and Oregon, and Oregon State and Washington State, you know, and Arizona, as he said. That's absolutely true. That doesn't necessarily mean it's true for the football. program because the economics of football are vastly different.

And this idea that we should govern and think about UCLA football or Ohio State football or Alabama football in the same way that we would think about and govern UCLA softball, Ohio State softball and Alabama softball is obviously wrong. That structure we've done. got to move away from. We really need to. And the only reason that we get stuck in these positions where we start to throw band-aids on these pop-up problems is because we're stuck in this model where we've got to make a rule that applies to Alabama Crimson Tide football and Nick Sabin as well as UCLA softball.

And that is so obviously problematic that we need to move away from that. So this idea that Chip had, and he's not the first one, and we've talked about it on this show, among other shows that talk about it all the time. The separation of football is a big one, and that leads to a governing structure. If it's a commissioner, great. If it's the college football playoff entity,

that can be a governing structure. Great. But the quicker that we can move away from the NCAA and this idea of Band-Aid issues over pop-up problems, the better, the better. Okay? The number two thing that he touched on there, and I think this is vital and important, is scheduling fixes. And it was nuanced, and he was talking more about structure there, but he also kind of threw in the scheduling apparatus. And if football can separate, and if we can get to a point where we're governing ourselves in a different way, what we can do is start to fix the schedule. And fixing the schedule, I think,

is a vital piece to not only continuing to grow the sport from an interest perspective, but also continue to drive revenue because that's the way that we're going to continue to grow. And driving revenue is not so that everybody can get rich, but it's so that you can do what he talked about, which is share in the revenue structure with the players, which I also think is important and gets to the third thing that he touched on, which was the Revshaer. And when you get to that point, here's what you get. The opportunity to collectively bargain with players. And once we can get to that point, then you can put guardrails on all of these issues that will make them all better.

Now, is it ever going to be Utopia? No. I mean, the NFL still has problems. And that's why they have CBA agreements, and they have, they've had work stoppages, and they've had lockouts and holdout. They've had all of that. And I'm not saying that it would just be all teddy bears and unicorns. But I am telling you that in that sense, everybody moving in the same direction, we get out of our silos, we separate, we start fixing the schedule, we start fixing the governance of the sport. Then we can get more organized.

We can take care of players in a better way than what we're doing now. one we can give them revs share and we can provide guard rails guardrails that protect them from themselves like I was just talking about in the last answer the one pushback that I would have there that he talked about is he talked about like college football in terms of like this 132 team entity and even a 64 team entity and a 64 team entity two entities but but if we're honest with ourselves there is such a vast difference even from team 132 in college football and team one in college football from a resource and commitment standpoint, that would probably need to get ratcheted down because I still think that conferences are important.

That doesn't mean that the softball team has to follow the football team into whatever conference that is. I think football should be independent to move into the conferences necessary in order to continue to drive interest in the sport. And I do think that that's important. And it can't just be divisions and it can't just, you know, be regionalized. I personally, conferences drive the sport in a big way. And they also drive revenue. And that type of resource and revenue is what we need in order for that last point about the rev share.

So really cool stuff from Chip. Like I said, I really loved what he was talking about. He's a smart guy. That's why I went and talked to him on Big Noon conversations. and I'm glad that he jumped in that fray that Jim Harbaugh has jumped into in terms of that Revshaer model. Okay. There's some news about Alabama and Michigan ahead of their matchup in the Rose Bowl. First of all, I can't wait for that Rose Bowl.

The Rose Bowl is going to be amazing. And then we get this amazing nugget of news that former Michigan linebacker coach, I think it's George Hilo, was hired by Alabama. And it's just like, and he will begin work, quote, immediately. And I'm just like, that's unbelievable. Alabama plays Michigan in, I mean, what is this? Less than three weeks, like two and a half weeks. It's around the corner.

And he's reportedly being hired as an analyst for the time being. Alabama will have an opening at outside linebackers coach next season as their coach is leaving. He's going to be the new defensive coordinator at Mississippi State. But here's this thing. And by the way, if I'm Alabama and Nick Saban, this is absolutely what I'm doing. Of course.

You think that, like, I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but this is a lot better than having some grainy cell phone footage from across the field. Like, you get a coach that was in their building. It's like, tell me everything about what they do. You're our employee now. Like, oh, my gosh. Nick Saban continues to be the best. And he leaves no stone unturned.

And by the way, this is why players love to go play for him. Because he doesn't leave a stone unturned. He is constantly thinking of ways to gain an advantage and continue to, as he likes to put it, provide value. Not only to his players, but to his program. That's his job and he does it better than anybody. So I'm not begrudging Nick Sabin what he does here. This is brilliant. I would do it.

I would do it. He's got the resources to do it. And now he's able to do it. And here's a former Michigan linebacker coach sitting in meetings talking about what? everything Michigan does, how their defense is built. What's their philosophy? Philosophically, what do they like to do on offense? What are these coaches like? Do they have tendencies? What were those tendencies? When they brought up ways to break those tendencies, how did they talk about that? I mean, this is a brilliant hire, and it's so beautiful. And by the way, we just, you know,

we read this and it's like, oh, yeah. But you talk about grainy cell phone footage from across the field, and people lose their mind because of a 1994 rule, you know, NCAA rule about advanced scouting. And by the way, I've said this plenty of times. Michigan broke a rule and should be and will be punished. This is not against the rule. This is not against the rule.

So I'm not begrudging anybody this. I'm just saying like, isn't this obviously just as much of an advantage? Potentially. Potentially. but I digress. We're going to have a show on Thursday. Come back for that because we will be talking about this high school signing day,

even though I, again, why in the world, why are we doing this right now? Why are we having the draft and free agency at the same time? Like, can somebody smart? By the way, these are supposed to be the smartest people we have. It's like these are people involved in academia. Unbelievable. And we just create a blender.

We got a calendar blender and it's good for nobody. Awesome. So we're going to have a show on Thursday. We're going to recap Signing Day. We'll see. I don't know. I don't know if there's going to be much movement. I guess we'll get a conclusion of the Dylan Raola saga,

the quarterback who's committed to Georgia. And it looks like he's going to go ahead and flip to Nebraska. So we'll have a conclusion. to that. And any other flips and news that we have. And we'll talk about those classes and how they are paired with the transfer classes and what it looks like for building these rosters for next year. Because obviously that combined ranking will be very important. So we'll be back with that show on Thursday. Make sure to subscribe to the pod. Make sure to be subscribed to the YouTube channel. Make sure to send us an email at the mailbag. And I just hope that you have a great day.

And by the way, if any of you are so inclined, just throw out of prayer. I've got jury duty all week. I'm not even, I shouldn't flash this, but yeah, see, there it is. There's the jury summons. And, yeah, so hopefully I don't get called in. You wouldn't want me on your jury, would you? Hopefully it doesn't happen. Anyways, have a great week.

We'll talk to you on Thursday.